If you are constantly doing something, thinking about what you are going to do next or, worst of all, worrying about what you are not doing, then perhaps you are trying to do too much.
Struggling to meet unreasonable commitments and expectations is exhausting and demoralising. Yet frequently these demands are self-imposed: it might seem like your todo list driven by the needs of others but, if you review it honestly, you will see that the long list is borne of your own expectations and feelings of obligation.
Last week I detailed step one in my process for ‘cutting back’ my commitments: Capture all your commitments on paper.
Now for step 2 and 3…
2. How much time do you really have?
You now have a complete list of all your commitments: everything to which you have dedicated some level of psychic energy.
Now you need to get real about how much time you actually have for all this stuff. There are only 24 hours a day and 7 days in a week - this is non negotiable.
Neil Fiore in The Now Habit details how to use the unschedule methodology to ensure that you have guilt-free relaxation time and will, therefore, use your work time more productively.
For my purpose you need only complete step one of the unschedule process which is to draw up a weekly timetable and all your non-negotiable activities. This includes absolute must-do activities (like sleeping and eating) and leisure/lifestyle activities (like exercise and socialising).
The kind of activities you list in your unschedule include:
- daily must-do activities such as sleeping, eating, commuting
- other routine events such as medical appointments
- health activities such as gym or walking the dog
- quality time (that you enjoy) with loved ones / friends such as dinner or a picnic
- relaxation / pampering time to read a book, get a massage
You may be thinking, surely dinner with friends or getting a massage are luxuries that I only get after I have attended to my todo list? Absolutely not!
Firstly, these types of activities are absolutely essential to your ongoing mental, emotional and physical well-being and there should be time for them in your schedule each week. If you don’t ‘have time’ for some leisure and fun, then that is a sure sign you are doing too much.
Secondly, if you defer fun until you have finished your todo list then you will never get around to having fun, and you will continue to feel overwhelmed, overloaded and overworked. It is a vicious cycle!
Note: Neil Fiore’s unschedule is intended to help you be more productive with your work, so you only schedule non-work activities and then log your work time after you have completed at least one-half hour of uninterrupted work on a project.
For this exercise we are attempting to work out how much time you have for your personal commitments. If you have an office job then the hours of your shift are pretty much a non-negotiable ‘routine event’ which is not available for you to use for personal commitments. So you will need to add in, for example, a ‘work’ appointment from 8:00am - 1:00pm and 2:00pm - 6:00pm each weekday.
Having completed your unschedule you will realise that you may only have a couple of hours a day (perhaps longer on the weekends) for other commitments (by the way, Neil Fiore recommends you have at least one full day a week for recreation and small chores).
We now know just how limited our available time is, but we still think that all the items on our lists are equally important. How do we decide what to cut?
3. Is it something you really want to do?
Thinking ‘I have to do this thing’ or ‘I should do this thing’ or ‘I am a bad person if I don’t do this thing’ is a terrible way to motivate yourself. I have written before about creating the right frame of mind for positive action.
You need to make a deliberate choice about what you want to do, based upon a genuine consideration of all the options, an understanding of the benefits and costs, and an acceptance of the consequences of your choice. That might sound all too calculated and clinical, but, most of the time, we make can make these judgments very instinctively.
Look at each item on your list and ask yourself:
- Why is this item on my list?
- Did I make a positive choice to do this thing?
- If so, why was it important to me?
- Is it still important to me?
- Does it support one of my major life goals?
- What will happen if I don’t do it?
- If it is a promise I have made, can I renegotiate?
- Is this something I want to do in the future which I can add to my someday/maybe list?
As you do this review, please remember the first and second of the ten commandments for reducing stress:
- Thou shalt not be perfect, nor even try to be
- Thou shalt not try to be all things to all people
If attending another one of Uncle Wayne’s mind numbing monthly slide nights fills you with dread, why do it? Do you really believe you are contributing to positive family relations? If you refuse you may hurt some people’s feelings, but you cannot be responsible for the happiness of others. More likely, however, people aren’t even aware of the ’sacrifice’ you are making for them and, moreover, if they were they would tell you not to bother. I think we tend to vastly overestimate our own importance. (Of course, this doesn’t mean you have to tell Uncle Wayne he is a terrible bore, there are always better ways to handle such circumstances.)
Conclusion
There are a lot of productivity techniques which, when applied well, will improve your efficiency and enable you to get more done in a day. More importantly, by being aware of what your choices, and cutting back on those activities which do not contribute to your longer-term goals, you will automatically find more time to devote to the things which are really important to you.
The bonus is that when you are working on things that are truly important to you, when you have a clear vision of why you are doing what you are doing, the work will seem more like a joy than a chore!
Good luck with your cutting back campaigns!
Rebecca
This article was posted on 27 January, 2008
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